Chapter 2 Understanding Your Customer
Understanding your customer:
Understanding how your customers decide to solve their problems and purchase your solution is critical when you’re trying to build a sales funnel.
In this chapter, we’ll take some time to map out your customer’s decision-making process in detail. If you have an easy way to talk to one or two target customers now’s the time. You’ll want to find out in detail what their decision-making process is like for solving problems.
Here’s the framework I use for doing all of my customer interviews.
Here’s what you need to keep in mind.
A problem worth solving has customers who see they have a problem, they’ve tried to solve that problem (cobbling together a solution), and they have the budget to solve that problem.
What does this look like for your customer?
Chances are you’re scratching your own itch and solving a problem that you and your peers have faced. If so, then this step should be a breeze. That said, don’t let that confidence get the best of you and assume that others have the same issues. Get out of your comfort zone and talk to an expanded audience.
Until you get feedback from other people besides your friends, you won’t truly know if you’ve hit the nail on the head and understand your customer. Keep in mind that your friends and family want you to succeed and want to support you and give you confidence. Seek out those who may have doubts or may challenge you, that is undoubtedly where you will get the best feedback.
If you’re not scratching your own itch so to speak, that’s ok too. A big part of going through this process is building your hypothesis, running tests, and building the expertise you need to make the right product. There have been hugely successful companies and products where the founders and creators recognized a need but were not solving their own problems.
Start by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. When does she first realize that she has a problem? Be specific and quantify this. Did she just realize that the manual process her company uses to manage documents costs them 10k a month and 100 man hours?
Write that down!
Ok, now she knows she has a problem. What does she do next?
If you’re like most people, she probably goes on Google and types in some keywords.
What keywords does she use? Be specific and make a list. If you’re unsure, use google’s keyword planner to get some ideas.
In your growth worksheet write out what keywords she’s using. Now that she’s reading through the list of possible answers. What does she do?
Does she see ads for your competitors? Does she see an answer on Quora?
Maybe instead of googling she goes to an industry forum or online community and asks a question. What are the questions she asks the group? What would you ask?
Go ahead and start listing out all the steps that you think she goes through when searching for a solution. Just go for volume and take 10 minutes.
Ok, now you should have a robust list of places online where she’ll SEARCH for a solution.
Now, how does she hear about YOUR solution? Time to make a list again.
Does she see your solution on Quora? Does she hear about it from a customer in that forum or online community you wrote down?
Continue to build out that list, get in the mind of your user and again focus on speed and jot down your assumptions.
Ok, so now she’s found you and maybe she’s even clicked on your website.
Does she want to see your product in action? What questions does she need answered to decide if this is the right solution for her?
Once she’s decided that this could be a good fit for her problem, who else does she need to bring into the decision-making process? What questions do they need answered?
Finally, how does she acquire budget for purchasing your product? Can she do it herself or does she need permission?
Map all of this out in your Growth Playbook and communicate with our team if you have any questions. The best way is through our Facebook group but you can also reach out to me on twitter or via email support@actionwins.co
